Facebook Instagram Linkedin Twitter Youtube
Home Blog Page 12693

At the Mall (08/11/17)

Architecture at Ayala Malls

AYALA MALLS hosts the Artkitektura Festival 2017. A tribute exhibit, MAÑOSA: Beyond Architecture, which was first shown at the National Museum last February, is on view at the Alabang Town Center Activity Center until Aug. 17 then will move to the TriNoMa Cinema Lobby from Aug. 18-Sept. 9). The exhibit features new and archival photos, examples of vernacular materials, furniture, and interior elements, and audio-visual presentations. Meanwhile, an art installation by Teresa Barozza titled Vocalizations plays from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. daily until Oct. 8 at Greenbelt Park. Works of Filipino ingenuity side by side international design, at the Greenbelt 5 Gallery from Aug. 22 to Sept. 10. The Chamber of Furniture Industries of the Philippines’ exhibit, Silya, highlights Filipino award-winning chair designs made from native/organic materials. Passersby are invited to take a seat. CFIP will also host talks with featured designers on the weekends of August to September at the Greenbelt Gallery. A series of lectures, panel discussions, and conversations will be held at the Ayala Museum from Aug. 24 to 27 to accompany the touring International Exhibition on Living Architecture. For more information and complete schedule of activities, visit https://www.artkitekturafestival.com/.

ayala-chair-081117
AN EXHIBIT of Filipino designed chairs is part of the Ayala Malls’ Arkitektura Festival 2017.

Music, films, art at Shang

This August at Shangri-La Plaza, discover new music, experience a different kind of film genre, check out visual art, and get inspired by celebrity living spaces. Rising singer Kiana Valenciano takes center stage at the East Wing on Aug. 19, 6 p.m. Meanwhile, the Urban Filipino Spaces: Home Exhibit will be held at the Grand Atrium from Aug. 15 to 23, featuring designs by celebrities. A Parenting Festival with Parenting Emporium will be held on Aug. 20 at the East Wing. The Ateneo Art Awards 2017 winners will have their works on display at the East Wing from Aug. 22 to Sept. 5. The 11th International Silent Film Festival, which runs from Aug. 31 to Sept. 3, features silent films from all over the world scored live by Filipino musicians at the Shang Cineplex. The Silent Film Exhibition and Musika X Pelikula will both be held at the Grand Atrium. For inquiries, call 370-2597/98 or visit www.facebook.com/shangrilaplazaofficial.

Shopping party

BANANA REPUBLIC is hosting a Shopping Party at its flagship store in Greenbelt 5 on Aug. 11, 5 p.m., with the latest styles at 30% off. Shop with a glass of wine in hand from Marks & Spencer and treats from TWG Tea, and participate in the Lucky Dip game for a chance to win P10,000 worth of Shopping Credits towards your next Banana Republic purchases, Banana Republic Modern Fragrances, Clinique cosmetic sets, Banana Republic envelope card cases, an overnight stay for two at I’M Hotel, or gift certificates from 1771 Group of Restaurants. Purchase anything during the shopping party and bring home spa vouchers for pampering services at I’M Onsen Spa, Clinique vouchers, or Banana Republic sample fragrances. Plus, receive TWG macaroons by signing up at the registration area.

THIRTY PERCENT off on new designs at Banana Republic’s Shopping Party.

Eight-step process to coaching a problem employee

I have had five workers with me in my department for more than four years now. We’re getting along fine with their performance above average, until recently when one of them committed mistakes one after the other, resulting in hundreds of thousands of pesos in losses. I talked to him about it. He has changed his ways. But now, after one month, his mistakes were repeated as if we did not talk about it. Please let me know how to proceed. — Greatly Puzzled.

If you want to establish long relationships with people, then you must develop a short memory. That applies only outside of the workplace. If you’re employed in an organization and tasked to supervise workers, you have no choice but to develop a long memory to help achieve organizational goals.

People management is a complex process, as intricate as a Gordian knot. There’s no doubt that it comes with the territory of being a manager. Most of the time, employees view matters from a different perspective than those from management. So beyond being good at people skills, you also need the ability to reconcile different views to work with people who may have conflicting interests, if not about certain external issues that could bother them at work.

That’s how “coaching” is different from “counseling.” Managers need to coach people if the root causes of a problem are internal — like, if the office has a poor lighting system, obsolete equipment, toxic management style, and so on. On the other hand, you need to do counseling if the root causes of a problem are external, say if the employee is experiencing a personal problem involving an unfaithful spouse, a family member who is gravely ill, or even a child who refuses to go to school.

The trouble is that in many cases, managers don’t bother to discover the reasons why some workers are not performing to their satisfaction. They simply identify the mistake and then proceed to correct them right away without even asking for the input of the concerned worker.

There are eight things you need to consider when you coach an employee. We’ll talk about counseling some other time. But for now, let me give you the eight-step process so that you can make an effective coaching of your problem employee:

First, seek a face-to-face, private discussion with the employee. This approach is much better than giving instructions via e-mail, texts, or Skype. And worse, asking a colleague or another worker to do it for you. Coaching can’t be delegated. You need to spend quality time with the worker to emphasize the significance of the issue. There’s no substitute for that.

Second, define the problem with the help of the employee. You must both agree that there’s a real problem. Both of you must be on the same page. You can only do this, if there are set standards and targets that are clear and very easy to understand and compare them with actual results.

Third, explore all the possible reasons why such problems are happening. There are many approaches on how to do it. You can mentally do the Fishbone Diagram or use other tools. However, the best and easy method is to seek the opinion of the concerned worker on why such issue is recurring. Then, find out if they are external or internal factors.

Fourth, agree on the most likely reason and focus your attention on solving it. You can generate many reasons, but since you don’t have the luxury of time to handle them all, you can only make a short list of top three reasons for the time being. Then, prioritize them starting with the number one likely cause. It would be easy to solve if the reason is internal and within your ability to control.

Fifth, generate as many possible easy and low-cost solutions. Create a situation where the concerned employee puts forward as many ideas under the spirit of co-ownership. But first, you’ve to establish a low-budget parameter so that whatever solution comes out, it would be readily acceptable to management.

Sixth, document as soon as you’ve agreed on a solution. Put the agreement in writing. Limit the terms and conditions to easy-to-understand language on one sheet of paper. Or you can e-mail the person summarizing what you’ve agreed to.

Seventh, monitor the result from a distance. And correct any deviation, if necessary. If the terms and conditions of coaching are clear, there’s no need for you to constantly look over the shoulder of the employee. Giving a bit of space to people is a manifestation that you trust them well enough and you believe that they can do a good job.

Eight, celebrate small wins and milestones. It’s an excellent way to reinforce any individual achievement as soon as it occurs. It doesn’t have to be an expensive celebration, but you simply need to manifest your appreciation for the positive changes. Reward and recognition are part of the monitoring process. But they have to be treated as separate steps if only to emphasize their importance.       

elbonomics@gmail.com

How PSEi member stocks performed — August 10, 2017

Here’s a quick glance at how PSEi stocks fared on Thursday, August 10, 2017.

PSEi_081117

Scaling a startup

“How can I grow my business? How can we scale?” These are the common questions I got after my talk and after the panel discussion in Slingshot Cebu 2017, a gathering among tech start-ups and medium, small, and micro enterprises (MSMEs) organized by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Cebu. Almost in unison, these companies expressed apprehension, at the same time, optimism, on what is in store ahead amidst threats and opportunities in presented by technology drivers.

There is reason to be worried. Nine out of 10 start-ups fail, according to a Fortune survey among founders of failed business ventures. While locally we are seeing the strongest resurgence of the startup craze since the dot-com era, we will not see them all succeed commercially. Why do they fail despite the plethora of business incubators, venture capitalist funds, and courses on entrepreneurship?

In my 2015 article in BusinessWorld titled “From 1 to 10: Scaling your business,” I explained why this is so, which I will recount here. Our informal education teaches us quite well about how to start a venture from zero to one. In fact, the seminal book of PayPal founder Peter Thiel, Zero to One, inspires readers to invent something new for the future. There are scores of other self-help books and training courses on how to start a business.

On the other hand, our formal education teaches us how to incrementally grow and sustain a business from 10 to 10,000. We are thought how to craft strategic plans, manage finances, and so on.

But what is sorely missing is the framework, preparation, and training for an entrepreneur to grow a business from one to 10, commonly referred to as scaling, and this is the main reason startups fail.

From my experience in scaling and advising startups and growing business units, my conversations with venture capitalists, coupled with teaching Master in Business Administration students, I have crystallized a framework on scaling a business.

But for scaling to work, the foundations of a startup should be in place — having the right product or service that meets customers’ needs, having the right set of people with the right set of skills, having a simple business model, and having enough cash to weather the startup storm.

The scaling framework requires a thorough and methodical understanding of three pillars: market segments, product development, and the sales engine. These work hand in hand and in an iterative process until the optimum mix is reached.

Identifying and understanding market segments are a key pillar to create a winning product or service. Market segments can be divided through benefits segmentation, which focuses on satisfying needs and wants of a set of customers, and psychographic segmentation, which focuses on consumer or customer lifestyles and behaviors. These can be further divided into anchor customers — those who mainly use the core product or service and provide a stable base revenue — and adjacent customers — those who use a derivative of the core product to satisfy a different set of benefits.

The product development pillar deliberately develops products that target and satisfy the needs of each market segment. The product derivatives come from the core product platform, much like a bunch of Lego blocks, by building on top of the core product. The pricing and positioning of each product derivative should be optimal to maximize adoption of each product derivative in the corresponding segment of the target market.

For example, Uber, through its app, started with anchor passengers who value convenience and time. Uber then launched a merchant delivery program that allows online shoppers to get same-day delivery of goods, an attractive adjacent market segment that is worth billions.

The most important pillar is the sales engine, which should be created and run like a well-oiled machine to acquire customers. Ultimately, businesses grow when customers buy what companies sell. The core product is sold by salespeople, be they the founders of the startup or an experienced sales force, to anchor customers. Product derivatives are sold through alliances and partnerships with complimentary players, such as the online retailers that Uber is now engaging to target online shoppers.

Reach to the mass and other adjacent markets is implemented through digital presence — online presence, digital calls to customers, and social media marketing — which is a relatively inexpensive way of reaching a big market base. These digital efforts are supported by well-integrated advertising, public relations, and promotion activities to reinforce the product positioning message. Publicly referencing early customer acquisitions is key to word-of-mouth and viral effects.

For this framework to be effective, the business model should have the following characteristics: repeatable systematic offerings (core and derivative products), recurring and repeat revenue (annuity or subscription business), and revenue diversity (revenue coming from different segments).

In the end, scaling is all about efficiency and replication. But what spells the difference between success and failure is execution.

The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of FINEX. The author may be emailed at reylugtu@reylugtu.com.

Reynaldo C. Lugtu Jr. is the Managing Director of The Engage Philippines, digital marketing and customer engagement solutions company. An information and communications technology firm. He is the Chairman of the ICT Committee of the Financial Executives Institute of the Philippines (FINEX). He teaches strategic management in the MBA Program of De La Salle University. He is also an Adjunct Faculty of the Asian Institute of Management

Davao hotel occupancy dips amid Mindanao martial law declaration

THE declaration of martial law in Mindanao has led to a steep drop in hotel occupancy rates in Davao City, the leader of the city’s business chamber said, though he noted that there have been signs of recovery ahead of a major street festival this month.

Ronald C. Go, president of the Davao City Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc., said hotel occupancy rates in the city plummeted to 30-40% following the outbreak of fighting in Marawi in late May, dampening the tourism sector.

“There’s that tendency for foreign governments to look at martial law and say there’s no grey area… When they hear that, alarm bells start to ring,” Mr. Go told reporters on the sidelines of the Philippine Development Forum held at the EDSA Shangri-La in Mandaluyong.

During the first semester, Mr. Go said occupancy rates were hovering at 80-90%, after former Davao mayor, now President, Rodrigo R. Duterte catapulted to power, raising lending interest in the southern metropolis.

“There’s really so much interest especially because our former mayor is now President. There were a lot of business delegations coming in. It really got Davao busy… Initially with martial law, that slowed down,” Mr. Go added.

Mr. Go said other tourism-related companies in Davao also hit headwinds following Mr. Duterte’s decision to place the entire Mindanao region under military rule on May 23 due to terror threats from the Maute group occupying Marawi City.

He noted that tourism plays a big role in Davao’s economy alongside the services and business process outsourcing sector, as well as agriculture.

However, Mr. Go said local firms are seeing inbound tourism bouncing back ahead of the Kadayawan festival which kicks off next week.

“Now, we are happily surprised because we’re running out of hotel rooms because of this event. It’s something very encouraging for us — it goes to show that we slowly gotten news out and slowly starting to see them come back,” the Davao-based businessman said.

“What we try to do is to spread the word especially through social media that martial law is different from what they perceive.”

As of Wednesday night, Malacañang said 548 Maute members have been killed while the government lost 128 troops and 45 civilians from the conflict in Marawi, which is now on its third month. Congress has extended martial law in Mindanao to Dec. 31 to allow government troops to continue with its  offensive. — Melissa Luz T. Lopez

Curiosity

An Indian student poses as he looks down the barrel of an 84-MM rocket launcher during an Indian Army exhibition at Panther Stadium in Amritsar on August 10, 2017.  AFP

India

PHL removed from dirty-money list

By Melissa Luz T. Lopez
Senior Reporter

THE PHILIPPINES has been removed from the watch list of a regional unit of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) following a new law that requires casinos to report daily deals to regulators, as the global watchdog recognized “significant progress” in combatting dirty-money deals.

In its meeting last month, the Asia/Pacific Group on Money Laundering (APG) — the FATF’s regional body tasked to monitor compliance of countries in the region — decided to pluck the Philippines off its list of jurisdictions needing further evaluation given existing gaps in laws and regulations.

“During the annual meeting, the Philippine delegation reported to APG membership that the casino bill has been signed into law by the President. As such, the Philippines has been taken out from APG membership action,” the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) said in a statement following the watchdog’s July 17-21 meeting in Sri Lanka.

A separate statement from the APG’s Web site also showed that the Philippines “exited transitional mutual evaluation follow-up in recognition of their significant progress in implementing the FATF standards.”

Headquartered in Sydney, Australia, the APG is the designated regional body that tracks the anti-money laundering regimes of the Philippines and 40 other states on behalf of the FATF.

On July 14, President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed Republic Act No. 10927 that requires all casinos, including Internet and ship-based gaming tables, to report daily transactions worth at least P5 million to the AMLC.

This move was expected to address the APG’s 2009 assessment that the exclusion of casinos as reporting entities to the AMLC raised “significant concerns” on curbing dirty money deals, citing the big volumes that pass through gaming tables.

Other gaps identified in the APG’s 2009 assessment report include the AMLC’s “limited authority” to directly access bank records, as well as the limited coverage of the law in requiring non-financial businesses and professions to report big-volume, suspicious transactions to the watchdog.

Afghanistan, Brunei Darussalam, Nepal, Pakistan, Taiwan and Vietnam were likewise removed from the APG’s list of areas needing follow-up evaluations, following reforms that improved their respective safeguards against money laundering.

The AMLC noted that the Philippines was removed from the FATF’s “grey list” back in 2013, but still had to address policy gaps with close monitoring from the regional watchdog APG.

Prior to this, the country averted being blacklisted by the international watchdog after a “high-level political commitment” by the administration of former president Benigno S.C. Aquino III to plugging loopholes in the campaign against illicit fund flows.

The global body sets international standards for combating money laundering and fund flows for terrorism, placing countries in three categories, namely: “gray list,” “dark gray list” and “black list.” Blacklisting entails sanctions that would make financial transactions with affected countries expensive.

In February last year, Philippine casinos were used by still-unidentified thieves to launder $81 million stolen from the Bangladesh central bank’s accounts with the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, which is the biggest cross-border money-laundering incident, so far, that has hit the country.

Of the amount that found its way into the Philippines, only about $15 million has so far been returned to Dhaka.

The new law signed by Mr. Duterte last month now counts all casino operators and gaming tables as reporting institutions to the AMLC.

“The need to regulate the casino sector in the Philippines has long been identified by its assessment body, the Asia Pacific Group, and was further stressed by the FATF in a public statement in June 2013. It has been the focus of ongoing scrutiny since then,” FATF Executive Secretary David Lewis said in a July 27 e-mailed reply to questions.

“Action to address this is, therefore, long overdue but nonetheless welcome.”

AMLC chairman and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Governor Nestor A. Espenilla, Jr. previously said that the new law would “plug a critical gap” and would boost efforts to stop the dirty money deals in the country.

Earlier this year, the US Department of State tagged the Philippines as a “major” money laundering site in 2016 due to reported cases of public corruption, human trafficking and drug transit.

Business, gov’t agree on priorities

STATE economic managers and business leaders yesterday hammered out the next steps in improving the economy in terms of infrastructure, ease of doing business, and social measures.

Over 400 representatives of local and foreign business groups attended the Philippine Development Forum: Sulong Pilipinas 2017 at the EDSA Shangri-La Manila hotel in Mandaluyong City where they and government officials drafted a fresh list of recommendations that the administration of President Rodrigo R. Duterte can act on in the second year of his term.

In his speech at the forum, Socioeconomic Planning Secretary Ernesto M. Pernia said the first Sulong Pilipinas held in Davao City in June last year yielded recommendations that — together with results of consultations with other sectors — served as inputs for the Philippine Development Plan 2017-2022 that was approved last February and which aims to prod economic growth to a sustained, faster pace of 7-8% in that period from 6.2% in 2010-2015 in order to drastically reduce by 2022 unemployment rate to 3-5% from 5.5% in 2016 and poverty incidence to 13-15% from 21.6% in 2015.

Crucial to that effort is a wide-ranging tax reform program that will shift the burden to those who can afford higher levies and increase revenues, in order to help fund an infrastructure development drive that will involve more than P8.4 trillion in state spending up to 2022, when Mr. Duterte ends his six-year term.

In a news conference at the end of the forum, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said the “set of action programs” agreed on yesterday includes identifying “best competitive advantages” against Southeast Asian peers; further enhancing ease of doing business with the cooperation of all national government agencies and local governments; allowing new telecommunication competitors; completing the planned 34.024-kilometer Southeast Metro Manila Expressway (C6) toll road project that will run between the Skyway in the Food Terminal, Inc. area in Taguig City and Batasan Complex in Quezon City; as well as building more farm-to-market roads, cold storage and irrigation facilities in order to facilitate distribution of agricultural products and raise farmers’ incomes.

Recommendations for the social sector include expanding PhilHealth coverage, providing more free medicines and strengthening rural health units; addressing the job-skills mismatch through the joint identification of jobs needed per industry by government, industry and the academe; improving land tenure security in all areas; providing entrepreneurial education for farmers, fisherfolk and other agricultural workers; and speeding up the resolution of the conflict in Marawi City.

“This is a running list… consultations between private sectors and government should be an ongoing affair,” Mr. Dominguez said.

“On our part we will study closely these suggestions to see what specific policy actions might be taken.” — Elijah J. C. Tubayan

Mobile-first strategy sets next stage of storytelling

By Mira Catherine B. Gloria
Online Editor

BUSINESSWORLD, the country’s premier business daily, has revamped its Web site (www.bworldonline.com) with a polished new look and a responsive interface to reach a broader audience for its in-depth news coverage.

homepage
A computer screenshot of the BusinessWorld homepage

The newspaper, which is celebrating its 30th year and is now a member of the Philippine Star Group, has decided to shift its Web presence to a more visually striking direction in response to changing reader behavior driven by the widespread adoption of smartphones and tablet devices.

Conceived with a mobile-first strategy, the new site ensures a seamless reader experience that cuts across multiple platforms: scaled for portrait mode on mobile phones and landscape for tablet devices and laptops.

The overall design of the new Web site revolves around a flexible, modular format, which can be customized in many ways to highlight the most relevant stories, special reports or breaking news.

The Web site’s homepage features an improved visual hierarchy and streamlined navigation. The day’s top stories are displayed in bigger tiles and the navigation menu was minimized, placed on the top left of the page, to put more focus on the content.

The redesigned home page also introduces a filter tool, which allows readers to customize a section called Featured Stories based on their interests.

Articles are presented in various layouts, giving readers new ways to view BusinessWorld’s news and features.

Photo slideshows, in-line video and other multimedia content are embedded in the articles to enhance our reporters’ storytelling.

Another new addition to the site is the “infinite scroll,” which replaces the antiquated “page jump” by allowing readers to discover more content when they reach the end of an article.

The new www.bworldonline.com puts social at its core as social networking sites like Facebook continue to dominate the Web site’s referral traffic. Social media buttons are always present whenever a reader scrolls through the Web site or goes deeper into content.

BusinessWorld also recognizes the changing behavior of the mobile Web audience, one where readers are looking for content that is insightful and engaging at the same time. This is why it created dedicated sections for explainer videos and infographics, which showcase alternative formats for presenting relevant issues.

“The new look of the Web site reaffirms BusinessWorld’s commitment to deliver its award-winning business news coverage to a broader audience and across multiple platforms,” Roby Alampay, BusinessWorld’s editor-in-chief, said.

“The redesign is just the beginning,” he added.

“As the reading habits of the Web audience change, the Web site will continue to evolve and we’re excited to see what the future of storytelling looks like.”

Negros provinces reverted to separate regions

By Ian Nicolas P. Cigaral
Reporter

NEGROS ISLAND Region (NIR), created two years ago and has yet to fully establish its own regional agencies, has been dissolved.

President Rodrigo R. Duterte signed Executive Order (EO) No. 38 on Aug. 7, dissolving the NIR established by his predecessor, former President Benigno S. C. Aquino III, through another EO.

Mr. Aquino’s EO 183 unified the provinces of Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental, located on one island, into a single administrative region in 2015 that had brought the total number of regions in the country to 18.

Negros Occidental, which has 13 cities, will now be returning under Region VI (Western Visayas), while Negros Oriental, which has six cities, will again become part of Region VII (Central Visayas).

The regional offices (ROs) established by EO 183 have also been abolished.

According to Mr. Duterte, NIR’s need for substantial appropriation for it to be fully operational “competes” for funding with priority government programs and projects, which he said must be “sufficiently funded.”

“The administrative regions were established to promote efficiency in the Government, accelerate social and economic development and improve public services,” the President said in his EO.

The Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) is directed to supervise the implementation of the order.

“All existing personnel of the NIR ROs shall return to their previous units of deployment, or reassigned to other offices within their respective departments/agencies,” Mr. Duterte said.

“The winding up of the operations of the NIR ROs, as well as the final disposition (e.g., transfer or abolition) of their functions, positions, personnel, assets and liabilities, shall be done immediately and completed not later than sixty (60) days from the effectivity of this Order,” he added.

Budget Secretary Benjamin E. Diokno was quoted in reports last year as saying that the NIR would require at least P19 billion to operate.

According to Budget Undersecretary Laura B. Pascua, Mr. Duterte agreed to scrap Mr. Aquino’s EO 183 as early as last year, adding that the measure is a “non-issue in the 2018 budget.”

“Even now, we have not been providing additional funds for it (NIR),” Ms. Pascua said in a text message yesterday.

LAMENT
In a Facebook post on Wednesday, former DILG Secretary Manuel A. Roxas II, who has roots in neighboring Panay Island and had endorsed the creation of the new region, lamented the abolition of NIR.

He said many Negrenses would have benefited from NIR if it had been pushed through.

“With NIR dissolution, mga Negrense will be traveling farther and spending more for services and Negros Occidental and Oriental development will be slower,” Mr. Roxas said.

Senator Paolo Benigno “Bam” A. Aquino IV, meanwhile, expressed disappointment on the President’s directive saying this will weaken the two province’s economic development.

Acting on a clamor from Negrenses for unification, the senator filed a resolution calling for the institutionalization of the NIR.

According to a statement released by the Senator on Monday, the resolution “stressed the need for the National Government to consider and assess the broader potential and long-term impact of having an administration center in the Negros Island.”

“At the very least, this issue warrants a public discussion and we hope the Senate can still hold a hearing on the resolutions we’ve filed last year,” said Mr. Aquino, referring to Senate Resolution No. 212, which he filed Oct. 24, 2016. — with reports from Elijah Joseph C. Tubayan and Mario M. Banzon

Senate holds Chinese businessmen in contempt over P6.4-B drug probe

CHINESE BUSINESSMEN Richard Tan and Manny Li were held in contempt by the Senate on Wednesday during its second hearing on the P6.4- billion worth of illegal drug shabu (methamphetamine) seized by the Bureau of Customs (BoC).

Continue

President reassures cops: ‘I will protect you’

PRESIDENT RODRIGO R. Duterte on Wednesday said there will be no letup in his brutal war on drugs and vowed to protect cops carrying out the bloody campaign that has drawn the attention of human rights watchdogs at home and abroad.

“And I tell you now: Do your duty and I will protect you. Do not abuse, do not commit crime, not the extrajudicial killing pictured by the human rights,” Mr. Duterte said in his speech during the 116th police service anniversary in Camp Crame.

“But I would tell everybody: No matter what it takes, there are always consequences. Me, if there is a shoot-out, if they offer the slightest violent resistance, if you have to shoot them, shoot them in the head,” he added.

According to police data, more than 2,000 people have been killed in drug-related crimes. Human rights watchers said many fatalities could be extrajudicial killings committed by cops and vigilantes. But Mr. Duterte has insisted that police are only killing in self-defense while gangsters are silencing potential witnesses.

Philippine National Police (PNP) Director-General Ronald M. dela Rosa, meanwhile, lauded the police for remaining “steadfast against the challenges to the service,” which he said led to a significant decrease in crimes over the past year.

Mr. Dela Rosa said the PNP “has won countless victories against crime and lawlessness” and has “learned its lessons well from setbacks and defeats.”

The PNP chief reported that from July 2016 to June 2017, the index crime volume decreased by 26.78% from the same period a year ago.

However, murder and homicide cases rose by 27.38% and 4.62%, respectively. Mr. Dela Rosa said that these increases “can be attributed to the sustained operations against illegal drugs.” — Ian Nicolas P. Cigaral and Jil Danielle M. Caro

1...12,69212,69312,694...13,098Page 12,693 of 13,098
© 2024 BusinessWorld Publishing.
All rights reserved.
Read our privacy guidelines
Facebook Instagram Linkedin Twitter Youtube